


Runaway - The Photo

by loves_books



Series: Runaway [3]
Category: A-Team (2010), A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charissa Sosa receives something unexpected in the post one morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runaway - The Photo

She doesn’t open the mail immediately that morning, instead leaving it on the kitchen table as she hurries about sliding files into her briefcase, shuffling the dishes from last night into the dishwasher, forcing her feet into another pair of black stilettos, waiting for the coffee machine to do its thing. Eventually it beeps to let her know her carry-out beaker is full, and she checks her watch quickly. She’s five minutes early after all that rushing around, and she sits at the table, flicking through the usual mixture of bills and junk mail; a leaflet for a window cleaning service, a charity begging for volunteers, and a small brown envelope, with a handwritten address.

A plain little envelope, not anything out of the ordinary, but the name on the front makes her stop and stare. It’s addressed to ‘El Diablo’, and there is no return address, only a Californian postmark, dated four days ago. Coffee forgotten, she holds it in her hands, staring at it for a long moment. 

She hasn’t heard anything from these men for some years now, long since moving on up to better projects and away from the hunt for the escaped team. They are far from a priority now, although they officially remain on the military’s Most Wanted list. She keeps one eye on the search for them, though she has long believed they would have been pardoned by now if those in charge weren’t so embarrassed over the whole affair. They do a lot of good work, she knows, and her superiors know it too.

Shaking herself, she carefully slits the envelope open. There isn’t much inside, what looks like a single item wrapped in protective tissue paper, and she unfolds the layers to reveal – 

A photo. The last thing she would have expected in all honesty, and she holds it gently by the edges, drinking in all the details, the four men standing together in a sunlit garden. The first time she has seen the team for so long. And they look so happy, all of them.

In the centre of the picture are Hannibal and Face, dressed in matching dark blue suits, which hug their muscular bodies in all the right places. They are as close together as they can possibly be, Hannibal with his left arm wrapped around Face’s shoulders. Face is looking directly into the camera, bright blue eyes so vivid and full of life even through the photo, head slightly lowered and a smile of sheer joy on his face as he leans into the colonel’s grasp. Hannibal, on the other hand, has his forehead pressed to Face’s temple, lips close to his ear, and it looks almost as if he is whispering something, for Face’s ears only. He is smiling too, eyes crinkled with laughter, and for a long time she can’t tear her eyes away from them both.

Face has his left arm reaching up across his body, hand spread protectively across the colonel’s chest, and she suddenly spots the glint of gold on his finger. A ring. Looking across to Hannibal’s hand, clutching his man’s shoulder, she sees a matching ring, and the whole scene makes sense, taking her breath away.

She sits back in her chair with a thump, breathing a little hard. The matching suits, the rings, the joy in Face and Hannibal’s expressions… This is a wedding photo. They’ve found a way, she thinks, and has to swallow down that old surge of jealousy as she stares into her former lover’s laughing eyes. She could have had this with him, if she’d wanted it all those years ago. She could have been the one to make Face smile this widely, the one to banish those always-present shadows in his eyes. If only she’d realised then…

But immediately she shakes her head, remembering all the reasons it wouldn’t have worked between them. Face had thought he’d wanted to get serious with her, he’d proposed to her, and yes, she’d run a mile. But even then she knew it was Hannibal he really loved, Hannibal who had wanted his lieutenant to try to find something ‘normal’ – a wife, a family, some kind of stability – and she knew it would never have lasted if she had stayed. If she had married him, there would have been nothing but tears and drama, and a whole lot of arguments and make-up sex. Face deserved better than that, and so did she. 

With one finger, she carefully traces the line of his face as he smiles out of the picture at her. The years have been kind to him, to Hannibal as well. Face has a few more laughter lines, perhaps, but he is still Face, still as breathtakingly handsome as she remembers. He looks like he might have lost some weight, maybe, although the suit fits so well she can’t really see much apart from the barest glimpse of his chest hair at the top of his open collar. Hannibal has more grey now than silver in his hair, but otherwise he too is unchanged, although she can’t remember ever seeing him smile the way he is here.

Tearing her eyes away from the happy couple, she turns her gaze to the other two members of the team, huffing a soft laugh as her eyes take in Murdock, close by Hannibal’s side. She can’t remember ever having seen him without a baseball cap on, though his hair is standing up in all different directions here and a cap would probably have been an improvement. He’s wearing his usual brightly patterned shirt – a relatively tame blue and white one, presumably chosen to match those stunning blue suits – and has his head thrown back, face frozen in what could be a grimace or a laugh or a shout of some sort, one arm thrown up in the air, hand covered in what appears to be a sock. On closer inspection, there are eyes sewn on, and what could be a tail, perhaps, and she laughs again. Murdock will never change, no matter how old he grows.

And BA, standing by Face, never changes either, that Mohawk still carefully shaved into shape, the neatly trimmed beard in place. His loose white shirt does nothing to disguise his impressive muscles, and for a moment she wonders when they find the time to work out anymore. Surely a gym membership must be impossible, though that’s hardly important now. The quiet man of the group has a rare wide grin on his own face as he leans back slightly, clearly keeping half an eye on Murdock’s antics even as he smiles for the camera, uniting the four men in one circle, even though the focus of the photo is clearly Hannibal and Face, and their two shining rings. 

She’s happy for them, really she is. After everything they’ve been through, all the years they had to hide their relationship in the army, the attempts Face made with her to have a ‘normal’ relationship, then the difficult years they’ve had on the run, never being able to settle down anywhere for long… They deserve this, they really do, and that expected pang of jealousy doesn’t last long. She made her choices all those years ago and she’ll stand by them, wanted to focus on her career, and she’s doing well – she’ll make Major next month, unless anything goes horribly wrong with her current project. 

She hasn’t been lonely either, though she wouldn’t say she’s been happy. There are always other officers like her, men passing through looking to play, as Face would no doubt have phrased it. But she doesn’t have anyone, not really, not the way Hannibal and Face have each other. And she stares again in amazement at those matching rings on their fingers, at the matching looks of sheer happiness on two handsome faces, and she smiles, even as she pushes away from the table and climbs to her feet.

Whatever the motivation for sending her the wedding photo – she’s sure it’s Murdock’s writing on the envelope, knows he was always the main user of her ‘El Diablo’ nickname – whether they expected her to be jealous, or upset, or whether it was just to share their good news with one of the few people the team know they have on their side, whatever the reason, she’s glad she knows. She really is happy for them, her former lover and his beloved Colonel Smith, married, and she hesitates only a moment before carrying the photograph carefully through to her living room, propping it up amongst her other framed pictures of family and friends. 

Probably too risky to have it on display, and she knows she’ll have to move it somewhere less obvious in case someone spots it and asks questions, though the capture of the team really isn’t a high priority anymore. For now, she wants it there, wants to see these men she is proud to call friends on what should be the happiest day of their lives. Checking her watch again, she curses to see how late she is now, and grabs her briefcase and coffee from the kitchen table before dashing out the front door, unable to keep the smile from her face, thinking that if her assistants dare to comment on her good mood today, she’ll kill them. She’s got a reputation to protect, after all, and life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Panda77777 who commented, after reading 'Runaway - The Wedding', that she could imagine Murdock sending Sosa a copy of the wedding picture.


End file.
